I know that most of you guys will probably vote the hate option, and once I would have too. I grew up a league boy, and my heart will always be in love with the Sharks.
I started watching Rugby in about 1998-99, the year that Australia won the world cup - I had only seen about 2-3 games on telly, but I stayed up for the final against France. I was blown away by the depth of competition - every ruck, maul, lineout, scrum was a competition. Every time a player was tackled, you'd never know which team would win possession, it was really nail-biting stuff.
I was also blown away by rucks ... I was used to seeing a player get tackled, held down until he started humping the ground, then everyone would get off and he would play the ball. But seeing a player tackled, then 3 or 4 players diving into the ruck (Tiann Strauss in #19 for Australia - I remember him clearly diving head first into a ruck and thinking 'he's putting his body on the line there, this is psycho!') it just blew me away.
After the 99 world cup, the Wallabies had some really successful years, up until the 2003 World Cup, and Johnny Wilkinson changed the game forever. He beat France in the semi-final with his boot, and he did the same to us. Union all around the world adapted to this conservative style of play, where position and points became more important than scoring tries and winning with flair. It's sad to see, and I hope it changes.
Since 2003, I've gotten more into the Waratahs as my other team. I've also been able to see games from all around the world - Ulster v. Leinster, South African teams fighting it out in the Currie Cup, Namibia getting smashed 149-0 by the Wallabies, Argentinian teams sending valuable, skilled players to Europe, then reforming to play for their country for no pay and barely any training, but still smashing England. Seeing australian players retire to Japan (Nathan Grey, Toutai Kefu) to help develop the game there.
And that's the other factor about Union that I love. It's more of a world game than league. I just hope that something is done to eradicate Johnny Wilkinson-inspired boring style of play.